pokeydots opened this issue on Nov 21, 2002 ยท 35 posts
Crescent posted Thu, 21 November 2002 at 1:17 PM
It's really difficult sometimes to find the line, and we do have discussions behind the scenes sometimes on matters like this. I'm not a Poser mod, so I'm not the last word on this, but I generally go by the following guidelines when I look at posts where it seems questionable:
Does this concern a for-sale item? If it's a Free Stuff item, it doesn't matter. Showcase Forum is for commercial products; it was created because of complaints that commercial products were flooding the regular Poser forum. No one was complaining about finding out about free stuff offered on other sites.
Did someone other than the merchant post the image or start the thread? (Or a merchant clone account?) If so, it's probably okay. (See point 2.)
Is the thread/image a "look at what I came up with using this for-sale product (or these products)" post or is it a "Buy this, it's great" post. (This is really hard to decide sometimes. We try to be fair, but we can't always please everyone.)
If a merchant posted about a product outside the Showcase Forum, is it a relevant response to a question posed by another member? If it contains general information about the product without a direct link to the product, then it's okay. (If someone is asking MAT poses, for example, then it's okay for someone with a MAT post creation program to pop in and mention that their program makes the process painless, but if the question is about transparency maps, talking about the MAT pose program is not relevant.) And if the question is about the product itself, then answering the question is very relevant.
The hard part is the WIP pictures posted by merchants. I look to see if there's anything in the post about methods used, etc. which would help educate users about the program. If it's just a Coming Soon picture, then I ask a Poser mod or an admin to look at the post to decide if it should be bumped to Showcase Forum.
I've asked for a Poser mod or an admin can come by and clarify this as it is their forum. I know it's frustrating when you're trying to play by the rules, but you're not sure what the rules are. We try to make the rules clear, but it's impossible to spell out every last contingency.
Hope this helps!